Comments on: 134. New ALMS Class. Tangled Webs. Porsche Performance reigned in.

By: jeffpk

jeffpk — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:46:51 +0000

Interesting that Haas is going to be involved but I don’t think it is anything altruistic. The loss of a series like the ALMS is not good for racing as a whole. If Bear is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt his Paw-ness.), Grand Am is teetering and comparing the Mid-Ohio lack of anything approaching a crowd by GA in June with the #’s drawn by this past weekend’s ALMS and IRL race should tell us there is very little interest in a spec car series. And anyone who doubts it is a spec series should listen to Ben Collins (the Stig?) about how the cars are built. His one sentence said it all.

Am curious…are we to believe that Gil will really run two cars next year in the ALMS?

By: sportscar66

sportscar66 — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:23:45 +0000

Excellent detective work Inspector Bear!

It’s interesting and historical THAT Haas comes to rescue again, or

is involved in the rescue of a race car series. Some of you Paddock

Poop readers may remember the Lola Formula 5000 cars that got

full bodies and became Can-am cars back in 1977 or so.

Haas was one of the key suppliers.

By: murphy

murphy — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 02:02:29 +0000

mariantic says: Not too sure about the “Courage Ford V8″ reference.

As it was explained to the Bear, the PMSG deal is not a purchase of the cars built in Europe. It’s a licensing deal in which the Oreca (formerly Courage) chassis is built at EMT, the cars are powered by EMT-built Fords, and other bits and pieces are provided by Multimatic, Lola, Haas (who probably gets the spares business, as he did with Champ Car). Murphy isn’t sure what the Lola connection is (there has been one through Multimatic recently, but he can’t remember the details)…Murphy is told these things by others (he’s not the source) and he’s often not told all the nitty-gritty details.

There’s some precident for this; the current IMSA Lights was proposed year before its launch to be non-spec., including Radicals, Wests, and other prototypes. By the time it became reality, it was pretty much restricted to cars built by PMSG.

Edited to add: EMT and Multimatic have long associations with Ford. If they are the supplier, it’s logical the engines will be Fords.

By: mariantic

mariantic — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Not too sure about the “Courage Ford V8″ reference. Formula Le Mans use GM engines, see here:-

http://www.formulalemans.com/en/about-flm/the-car/

Is Murphy expecting a switch to Ford power?

Also what is the Lola angle?

(BTW that FLM website is worth a browse, these are very nice cars virtually identical to the first LC75s that the Acura team had before they got the Wirth tweaks.)

By: wrestlerrob

wrestlerrob — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:34:22 +0000

I can’t imagine running the formula le mans cars with 2 prototype classes and the GT2s at the same time during a race. This must seal the idea of combining the current prototypes in ALMS and allowing the FLM cars to be the new P2 class. Races like Lime Rock will get really busy.

By: simon_42

simon_42 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:18:12 +0000

Well, now that you’re mentioning it, these and the DPs would make a nice class. Yeah, I know, DPs will need to be made faster…

By: almsrick

almsrick — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:03:09 +0000

What will the new Class be called? BP? (as in Brasleton Prototypes?)

By: murphy

murphy — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:57:29 +0000

No, it does not. The restrictor table defines the restrictor for the miniminum weight “assigned,” regardless of whether you can actually meet it or not.

By: Satorian

Satorian — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:04:47 +0000

So, “minimum” weight. Doesn’t that mean they could just keep running at 1250 kg by their own choice with their restrictor as is and continue with their winning ways?